


The Ones You Call at Four AM

by redbrickrose



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:30:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/pseuds/redbrickrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Need is even more undignified than love. The whole thing is disgusting.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ones You Call at Four AM

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hauntedd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/gifts).



> They're all terrible people. They're just...all terrible people. Happy Yuletide?
> 
> Also, for what it's worth, I think Mellie CLEARLY will win the long game over Fitz. Like, Fitz is an amateur. It's not even really a fair contest.
> 
> Spoilers through episode 3x10, "A Door Marked Exit"

1.

When they were three months into their relationship, and already intoxicated with the potential of shared ambition, Mellie and Fitz had dinner with Mellie’s college roommate. Just before dessert, Fitz took a call in the lobby, and Rebecca leaned toward Mellie as soon as he was out of earshot, squeezing Mellie’s hand, something like concern in her eyes.

“Oh, he’s _charming_ ,” Rebecca said, like sympathy, or a warning, or a foregone conclusion.

Never let it be said Mellie didn’t have a type.

But Rebecca didn’t understand her type either. Mellie was not easily charmed, but Fitz was pure charisma back then, when he still believed in himself, before they’d bargained to sell his soul for him, and “charming” was currency; “charming” was promise. Even in the beginning, when they were both still so young and beautiful and new, Mellie’s desires were never singular, and her love was always ambitious.

Mellie dropped her eyes, pulling her hand back from Rebecca and taking another sip of her wine. Rebecca looked on serenly, her other hand resting on her stomach where it was starting to swell with her first child.

“He is,” Mellie said; he was so much more than than that. So was she, and they were so well-matched.

“If you’re sure,” Rebecca said, concerned, because she’d known the boys who’d come before. “I want you to be happy.”

And Mellie, thinking she was aware of all the risks, thinking Fitz was the key to everything, (they were both so young, so beautiful, so new) said, “I am.” She was hungry, driven, and optimistic, and that was the same thing as happy.

Rebecca nodded, seemingly unconvinced, but let it drop until Fitz was back at the table. She smiled at him, and must have meant it because she was a terrible liar, always awkward in insincerity.

Rebecca was incomprehensible, with her sweet warmth that wasn’t ever a mask or self-defense. Rebecca was beautiful in a way that was mostly quiet dignity; fun, but wholesome; clever, but unambitious; content to be a doting wife and mother and already good at it. Mellie would use her as a model later, when she was pretending to be everything her father and Fitz’s father, and Fitz himself wanted her to be. Mellie loved Rebecca, and hated her too, for being so uncomplicated and easily satisfied, and also just because Mellie hates everyone she loves, just a little bit. It gives them too much power.

In hindsight, she should have seen her entire marriage coming.

Mellie hasn’t seen Rebecca since before Fitz was elected, and hasn’t spoken to her outside of Christmas cards in years. She thinks sometimes, now, that Rebecca was the last real friend she had.

2.

Mellie had thought, once, that she and Olivia were friends. Not like she and Rebecca had been, of course. Mellie stopped making friends like that well before Olivia showed up, but friends to a point, to the degree either of them were really capable of, to the degree you can be friends with your husband’s mistress, or the woman married to the love of your life.

Okay, maybe they weren't friends, but they _were_ allies.

That doesn’t really matter now. It never really mattered that much then, except strategically. But strategy has always been important, and Mellie has always valued her allies and her co-conspirators, the way Olivia values her allies and her acolytes.

They’re so well-matched, the two of them.

They’re so well-matched, the _three_ of them.

Never let it be said that Fitz doesn’t have a type.

That’s the worst of it, in her quiet, clear-thinking moments. Worse than the betrayal of their marriage is the betrayal of all of their plans, and the fact that, somehow, through blood spilled and truth spilled and the echo of Defiance, Fitz can still think Olivia’s the best of them, can think she’s different at all.

Because Fitz has allies and handlers, and Mellie and Olivia were always the most adept at handling him. Sometimes Mellie thinks he doesn’t actually deserve either of them, the way they get their hands dirty for him, the way they plot for him, the way they protect his plausible deniability. That’s the luxury of his position and his pedigree, that he ever thought you could get where he got without casualties and consequences. He’s learned better, but he’s cracking under the weight of it, and he still doesn’t understand, intuitively,that there's always a cost. 

So maybe they were never a match, the three of them; maybe he was always too steeped in naive, idealistic, privilege. So like a man.

Regardless, Olivia Pope is a good ally to have, and Mellie misses her. She hates her too, and not just because Fitz loves her blindly and Mellie loves Fitz more than she meant to, but because Fitz needs Olivia to function, and Mellie needs Fitz if everything she has sacrificed will ever be worth it, so Mellie needs Olivia to see her through, and need is even more undignified than love. The whole thing is disgusting.

She said none of that the night she asked Olivia to come back for both of them, but she did say she missed her, she said they were friends once, when what she meant was “comrades in arms.” She’d prostrated herself, and desperately half-meant all of it, and Olivia had looked at her with those wide, dark eyes, and understood completely. They've always understood each other, the way only partners in crime and comrades in arms can.

3.

Partners in crime, comrades in arms, and worthy adversaries.

Here is the truth: Sally Langston is Mellie’s competition, and they've circled each other in suspicion from the beginning.

Olivia is her competition for Fitz, certainly, but Olivia is a shadow, background operative, a threat to Mellie’s ambition only in the game of reputation. And yes, Mellie hates them both for it, and wishes them the worst of each other, locked into the quiet life they both think they want and that neither of them have the patience or the constitution for. Mellie doesn’t want to lose Fitz, but she could. Since the advent of Olivia, that’s been a possibility she’s had to account for. The loss of him doesn’t mean defeat.

But Sally, in all of her simpering, god-fearing, homophobic, bible-thumping glory, would be the first female president, and Fitz and Cyrus would play politics to back her, and Mellie would have her fall. It’s simple: the first female President will be a Republican because a Democratic woman won't carry the conservative vote, not in this political climate. Over Mellie’s dead body will that woman be Sally Langston. But Mellie can wait, smile, and smile, and bide her time.

It’s not like she hasn’t had practice.

In the end, Mellie and Cyrus either underestimated the strength of Sally’s convictions or overestimated the core of steel in her. Mellie really thought they were more alike. She’d figured ambition would outweigh conviction, pride would outweigh betrayal, and that a woman like Sally (like Mellie) would have made her internal bargains, would already know, was already fine and numb.

She’d forgotten her own missteps, everything that came before "numb." Though, really, even she hadn't, she wouldn't have predicted Daniel Douglas' death, and she does wish Cyrus would settle down and think pragmatically. Even at her most vulnerable, Mellie would never have been out of control enough to go that far, so whatever crisis of the soul Cyrus is having, they really shouldn’t hold themselves responsible for Sally’s overreaction.

But if everyone else is going to fall apart, Mellie will keep it together for all of them. So maybe Cyrus is the devil; maybe Mellie is his accomplice. So, fine. That’s not a reason for surrender; it's a reason to make sure that all the lines you've crossed are worth it.

And so this is where they are: if Sally has sacrificed like Mellie has, (and she _has_ , of course she has; it's what you do for power), if she _wants_ like Mellie does (and she _does_ or she'd never have made it this far), then when she starts breathing and thinking again, she’ll fight to make the blood on her hands worth something.

Mellie smiles, sweet and warm pulled tight over conviction, and takes Sally flowers with Fitz’s condolences, Cyrus’ bribe, and her own promise.

_We’re so sorry for your loss._

_You're part of our family, and we’ll support you...be patient._

_The first female president of the United States is in this room; may the best woman win._


End file.
